Aguero to miss Manchester derby

London – Manchester City's top scorer Sergio Aguero will miss next week's derby against Manchester United due to a hamstring injury, manager Manuel Pellegrini confirmed on Friday.

Aguero sustained the injury during his side's Champions League defeat at Barcelona last week and Pellegrini says that there is “no chance” of him making the trip to Old Trafford on Tuesday.

Aguero, who has scored 26 goals this season, could instead make his return at Arsenal the following Saturday.

“We don't know yet, but maybe next week he will start working with the squad,” Pellegrini said.

“I don't think the whole week. Maybe at the end of the week he can be with the squad starting training.”

When asked if the Argentina international was in contention to face United, Pellegrini replied: “For United, no, no chance.”

Speaking ahead of his side's home game with Fulham on Saturday, Pellegrini also moved to play down rumours linking Aguero with a transfer to Barcelona.

“It is exactly the same as I respond to all the other links during the whole year,” he said.

“We cannot talk every week about the players that are coming here to Manchester City and the players that are going out. He is a player of Manchester City, he is very happy here and the club is very happy with him also.”

As well as Aguero, City will also be without captain Vincent Kompany for Fulham's visit after the Belgian centre-back was sent off in last weekend's 2-0 success at Hull City.

Fellow central defender Matija Nastasic is also unavailable due to an ongoing knee injury and Pellegrini admitted that he was becoming concerned about the Serbia international's condition.

“He continues with some pain in his knee. He has at least a couple more weeks to recover,” said the Chilean.

“Of course we are concerned because the doctor doesn't know what happened with him. He made all the exams that he needs, but we don't know what happened with him.

“We are taking other opinions. The doctor is in charge of that. The player feels a pain inside the knee, but nobody knows what the pain is.” – Sapa-AFP